Baseball Playoffs : Cardinals Hot About Leonard’s Trot

Talk about a bush stadium. The Bud-bellied baseball fans of St. Louis were all on Jeffrey Leonard’s case.

“Jeffff-rey! Jeffff-rey!” they heckled whenever the San Francisco slugger came to bat Wednesday at Busch Stadium, or when he took his position in left field.

And worse stuff, too.

“They yelled: ‘Your IQ’s on your back!’ ” said Leonard, whose uniform number is double zero.

Chili Davis could hear it, too, from his seat in the San Francisco dugout, or from his spot in center field. Davis studied the faces of the strangers who visited his locker after the Giants’ 5-0 victory in Game 2 of the National League playoffs and asked: “Anybody here from St. Louis?”

Nobody raised a hand.

” . . . cow-towners, man,” Davis said.

Ooooh. A Chili response to a chilly reception.

“They’re just going to try anything to distract you,” Davis said. “But it won’t work on Jeffrey. He’s just going to stick it up their . . . He’s just going to tell them: ‘Ahhh, shaddup. Just go retrieve the . . . ball I’m going to hit up there in a minute.’ ”

Which he did.

For the second straight day, Jeffrey (Hac Man) Leonard--the man with the leather-upholstered upper torso, the man who doesn’t want to be called Jeff because it’s just too cutesy-poo, the man whose friends once called him Penitentiary Face, then later formalized it to Correctional Institution Face--hacked a home run over the 414-foot marker in dead center field, then trotted around the bases in the slowest jog since that Swiss woman who ran the marathon in the 1984 Olympic Games.

Pitcher John Tudor was no happier with Leonard than the St. Louis fans were. According to Leonard, Tudor pointed at him as he rounded third base and shouted at him to hurry up.

Tudor said: “He’s not my favorite Giant. Not many (of the Cardinals) like him. I don’t have to elaborate.”

Leonard couldn’t care less.

First off, Hac Man is feeling good because he already has five hits in the series, including the homers, and because he might be the only ballplayer alive with an incentive clause paying him extra if he becomes the most valuable player of the league championship series.

Also, Leonard is feeling fine because he was able to put up before anybody told him to shut up. After Tuesday night’s 5-3 loss in Game 1, the Giant outfielder--and we mean that literally, by the way--made such brash remarks as: “We still know we’re a lot better club than St. Louis,” and, “We just had one lousy inning. Other than that, they were a beaten team.”

Misquoted? Misunderstood?

“I didn’t say anything yesterday that I didn’t believe,” Leonard said Wednesday.

Keep in mind that we have here a man who sometimes says nothing, but who rarely is told to shut up. Mike Tyson wouldn’t tell this guy to shut up. With his blacksmith’s arms, his mean black mustache and the black grease under his eyes that makes it look as though he’s wearing a face full of electrical tape, Leonard cuts a bad figure. His face would scare penitentiary faces.

Leonard is accustomed to doing as he pleases. Nobody knows him very well, even at age 32, because he is something of a chameleon, constantly changing. One day he’s a lion; next day he’s a pussycat. The other Giants know only that the guy’s a hitter. Of the rest of his personality, they aren’t always so sure. So, occasionally they make something up.

“Since he’s on my team, I like the fact that he scares the guys on other teams,” pitcher Mike Krukow said. “I spread the word that he was once the unbeaten, lightweight state boxing champion of Pennsylvania for nine years in a row. Just thought I’d help create a mystique about him.”

The talk of the playoff series is turning out to be Leonard’s home run trot. If there is any doubt--any mystique, as it were--as to Hac Man’s intentions when he circles the bases at lame-tortoise speed, as to whether he is innocently enjoying his homer or deliberately annoying the pitcher, let us resolve that matter right now.

He is deliberately annoying the pitcher.

“Sometimes you can mess a pitcher up,” Leonard said. “Sometimes you can get him all distracted. I wanted to do it for Tudor, because he’s had some great success with me before. I wanted him to get a good look at it.

“He did, too. He was hollerin’ at me when I got to third: ‘Go! Go on!’ If a pitcher will let these sorts of things bother him, I’ll do it all day.”

For style’s sake, Leonard adds a nice touch. It’s his “flap down” trot. When he runs the bases, he sometimes lets his left arm go limp, totally dead at his side. He did it Wednesday.

Some say Leonard is still trying to rub it in to those who bugged him in recent seasons about missing so much action because of injured wrists. Leonard played in only 89 games last season. This year he appeared in 42 more.

Leonard merely wants to look good out there.

“Dave Parker had the best trot of anybody,” he said. “He’s a real stylist. Sometimes he ran toward the first-base dugout and waved at everybody in there. That was sweet.”

Another time, Leonard swears, Parker circled the bases twice. At least, that’s how long it took.

Chili Davis agreed. “I’ve seen Dave Parker hit home runs and almost literally give people five in the dugout on his way to first base. I think it’s great. This is entertainment. This is a showcase. This is our encore. Jeffrey just wants to give ‘em an encore.”

None of the Giants seem to mind. Catcher Bob Melvin said: “When you hit two balls out of center field like (Leonard) did, he can do whatever he wants. It’s pretty colorful, actually.”

What about repercussions, though? Are the Giants afraid the Cardinals will think of it as being shown up? Are they afraid of returning here for a sixth or seventh playoff game and getting even more heat from the fans?

“We don’t want to be applauded. We want to be booed,” Davis said. “When you get booed here, that means you must be doing good. Besides, these St. Louis fans aren’t so tough. I’d rate them fourth or fifth in the league. Philly fans are bad, Met fans are bad, Cubbie fans are among the meanest. I think our own fans are up there.”

Dodger fans?

“Dodger Stadium? Dodger Stadium is quiet,” Davis said. “They come out there with their caviar and their escargot and their wine coolers and watch a game for seven innings and leave.”

Davis, though, said that a ballplayer can go too far with this trot stuff, and mentioned Mike Marshall’s finger-pointing episode earlier this season. Otherwise, he doesn’t blame a batter a bit.

“Hey, I figure if a pitcher’s gonna knock you down on 0 and 2, that’s his game, so if I take him downtown, that means I beat his game and I intend to enjoy it,” Davis said.

So what if the pitcher gets hot about it. So what if the customers boo you.

“I love the boos,” Leonard said. “I love it. Really, I do.”

Next time, maybe he will do a back flip, a la Ozzie Smith. Or maybe run the bases with both flaps down. Or maybe with the back of his trousers down. Who knows? You never know with Jeffrey Leonard.

“I hear he gets $16 million extra if he gets the MVP,” Krukow said.

Mystique, baby. Mystique.